Summer draws to a close and our friends Ingyin and Yosi prepare to return to Abu Dhabi and to the new term at NYU Abu Dhabi’s Physics Department. Not quite yet, but too soon. So we planned a fancy dinner while we still had time, and started with drinks out on our balcony.

The Union Square Farmers’ Market groans with stone-fruit. Wasps buzz around stalls laden with peaches, It’s been a long day apartment hunting ahead of our September 3rd move out deadline. And frankly, it’s not been any fun whatsoever. I load my bag with kilos of plums and apricots, and head home to make cake.

I work at the kind of office where people all have titles like Senior Business Head of Global Creativity Strategy, and suchlike, so I didn’t guess when I was re-writing Tom’s bio, that he was in fact, seriously senior. Kind of my boss’s boss senior. Conversation turned, as conversations do, to beer pong. “You any good?” he asked.

“Absolutely!” I replied with confidence, thinking back to my 2 summers-ago victory at throwing beanbags into a board with holes in it. Continue reading →

Jon and I have been ships that pass in the night recently. Me to London, him to Rio. When I got back to our apartment, tired and cranky, I discovered that he’d put milk in the fridge for me, a vase of flowers on the table, and a Cronut in the fridge.

July 4th approaches, and my friend Jen sends out the following email to the group of friends who are gathering by the river to watch the fireworks, “we’re doing burgers, and hotdogs, Kate’s bringing a flag cake …”

Did I tell them that? I wonder. But that’s the thing about these sorts of holidays. Anything you do twice is suddenly a set in stone tradition.